Rathdowne Street
by Estoma
Summary: It's a hot summer night and Johanna is making love by the open window. Australian AU.


**Author's note: Happy birthday, Amanda. You have talked of a highschool AU, so here is my take: an Australian AU. Any reference to real places is intentional. I know how much you like google maps, so you can hop on and find all the places mentioned here. **

Bells ring and the number 8 tram clatters cheerfully along Rathdowne. Breaks sigh as it takes the ponderous turn into Princes Street and soon it trundles out of hearing. When it's quiet once more, the gentle strains of an old, mellow guitar drift up from Dan O'Connell's on the corner. Someone's singing in a rough, wog accent in an Irish pub, and it is a hot January night in Carlton. Johanna imagines calloused fingers, burnished honey-wood and condensation beading on glasses of dark craft beer. The stifling summer air sidles in with the music and presses heavy on her skin. A fan whirs valiantly, but it is fighting a battle it cannot win. But that's okay. Soon, the heatwave will break, and then everyone will smile easily for the first time in five days.

She watches a wisp of shadow slip off the street and brush through the drying geraniums that line the side of the house. Johanna shakes her head fondly. None of them know where the big, ugly tom came from. He's grey like sin and has fathered all the kittens from the Irish pub to Carlton Gardens. Cinna thinks that the rough tom is the runty grey kitten they saw a few months back. Last winter, the block was owned by a rangy ginger, but then the grey tom turned up – or, as Cinna insists, his balls dropped – and they didn't see the ginger anymore. Officially, they call the cat Caesar but he's got a wicked scar across his muzzle, uncannily similar to the scar Fallon's uncle, Dirk, wears. He says it was a bar fight. He doesn't usually mention that the fight involved his brother and a smashed glass bottle. So when Fallon is not around, Caesar is referred to Dirk-the-Cat. She watches Dirk-the-Cat brush against Finn's surfboard and it clatters into the geraniums. She's sure the cat does things like that on purpose. Dirk-the-Cat is the one place Fallon is firm; it stays. He makes sure to feed it and doesn't ask anyone else. The cat, clever bugger, stretches out full-length under the leaking garden tap. It drips on his muzzle and his one remaining ear. She wants a cold shower, but will wait for the rain.

Johanna sighs and leans her elbows on the windowsill. It's hot-as-hell – thirty-eight degrees and all of that humidity. For five days, the heatwave has kept temperatures above thirty-five, and the last day is always the worst. Sometimes, though, she thinks the cool change is worth the heatwave. It's coming. All day, the clouds have been gathering over the city and now they're night-dark and thick. She can't see the stars, but they're usually pale against the city lights, anyway. It's enough to know they are there above the clouds. Now, a special sort of tension clings to the air. It hums and throbs. Soon, it will break. When the rain comes, everyone will smile easily again and turn their faces to it, grinning like children. It will settle the dust and revive Cinna's dying germaniums. Johanna loves Melbourne in summer. She breathes in the metallic smell that heralds the rain.

Another number 8 clatters by – a modern horse and carriage. She remembers reading that the first trams were designed to mimic the sound of hooves on asphalt so they would not be too new and frightening. Johanna quite likes the sound. So she leans on the sill and feels the sweat between her thighs, and her shirt sticking to her back. She remembers their first heatwave, a few years ago; Fallon, used to September snow in the shadow of Mt Hotham, thought he was dying. They packed the car for St Kilda Beach. Johanna knew what heat was; she moved out of Kinglake after the Black Saturday bushfires roared over the hills and left them dead. She rests her forehead against the edge of the window and thinks of trams and cats and how Fallon – ever the country boy – was shocked that there were syringes buried in the sand down at St Kilda. The Greek boy at the Irish pub begins another set. She doesn't think of fires very often anymore.

Everyone sounds distinctive coming up the stairs, and Johanna knows them all. Finn slouches, his eyes half shut, as he rises early when the swell is up. When they can coax Dirk-the-Cat inside, he takes the stairs in three great bounds. Cinna walks more quietly than the cat. Fallon always takes the stairs slowly; he has to bow his head as he reaches the top. Johanna smiles when she hears him, and she stops thinking about cats and trams. She waits for him to find her, and her gaze wanders to their bed. With a grin she conceals, Johanna looks back to the window. A couple is walking home from the pub; he is singing snatches of a song, and she is holding his hand tightly.

The bed is an island on the scrubbed dark boards, and Johanna loves the cast iron frame. They found it at a flea market in Brunswick, brown and orange with rust, but Johanna loved the twists of leaves worked into the metal. Fallon paid $10 for it and he and Finn wrestled it into the back of the ute. It took weeks to scour away the rust, and after all the trouble, they barely got it up the stairs. Fallon and Finn sweated and swore over it, and Cinna did not come out of his room until it was quiet. Johanna had laughingly kissed all the bruises Fallon got from hauling it up the narrow stairs. Now it sits proudly in the middle of the floor, black and heavy and delicate all at once.

She feels his heat before he touches her. It's just that kind of day, and that's okay. Staring out the window, she bites her lip and stays as still as she can. Johanna enjoys this game. Fallon sweeps her damp hair off her neck and kisses her. It's a bold move for him. She does her best not to giggle; he shaved this morning but his stubble is back to tickle her skin. They're both sweaty and disgusting and young enough not to care. He kisses her neck and her jaw, putting his hands on hers on the cracking painted windowsill. His hands cover hers completely, and Johanna knows there's a joke waiting to be told. She holds still, and waits just long enough to hear the plaintive doubt in his voice.

_Jo, what'd I do?_

She turns around in his arms, then, and stretches up to kiss – hard. Their teeth clash and Fallon stumbles back half a step. She tugs him forward again. The windowsill is against her back and she pulls Fallon against her until she can feel the heat radiating from his skin. She kisses him, then, and he's still trying to catch up. Outside, the air is as thick as it's going to get tonight; it shivers. She runs her tongue over his lips and pulls back to smile up into his face.

_Nothing, _she murmurs. _Nothing at all. _

Fallon is not wearing a shirt, and she likes that. She hooks her thumbs in the waistband of his shorts and slides them down, too. She likes to watch his face, and she likes to know that there was only one other girl before her. Johanna tells herself that the first doesn't count, anyway. She prefers to undress herself, and Fallon knows this; he keeps his hands by his sides. Then, they are both standing by the open window with sweat beading on their skin and Johanna is intoxicated with the idea that anyone can look up and see them. It makes Fallon blush. It is no cooler without clothes.

Soon, they are in the bed that Johanna loves so much. His breath is hot and her skin is hot and the air outside is stifling. But Johanna does not mind. She is rough when she kisses; she nips and pulls on his bottom lip and tightens her hands in his hair. Fallon holds himself on his elbows above her, and he rests his hands by her head. She doesn't mind that he is clumsy; he has not had a chance to learn many bad habits, either. Her nipples harden under his tongue, one at a time, and she twists her hands in his hair and doesn't make a sound. She prefers if he thinks he has to work a bit harder. The rain is very close, now; the room smells like sweat and the metallic promise of a cool change. Johanna is ready for it. So she pushes him down and hooks her legs over his shoulders. Her pale skin looks paler but she likes the contrast with his dark hair. Fallon's stubble tickles her thighs and she tries to stay still. When he looks up and meets her eye, his lips are slick with her. Fallon never says a word while they fuck, and Johanna likes to think it's because he wants to concentrate on her, but she knows he's not very good at multitasking. Still, he smiles and she feels the shape of it against her.

The curtains hang limp in the heavy night and the young Greek finishes his set down at O'Connell's and starts another. Johanna does not hear. She throws her head back and digs her heels into Fallon's shoulders. Her hands are very tight in his hair but he says nothing. She presses her eyes closed and sees colours like flames and flowers flash across her eyelids.

_You know I like you a lot, don't you?_

Fallon murmurs something in reply, but Johanna does not catch it; she gasps. Then, she rises up on her knees, pushing Fallon backwards, nearly off the end of the bed. His dark eyes are startled and glowing; he has been concentrating. They kiss, just once, and she pushes him to lie where she has been. Now, she straddles him. Johanna likes to be in control, and she has met enough men who do not agree with her. Fallon puts his big, rough hands on her breasts and he tries to be gentle. She is rough. Johanna rolls her hips forward and runs her hands up Fallon's chest. She quickens. There is the low rumble of thunder on the very edge of hearing; the storm is very close now. They are both breathing quickly, and they have forgotten how sweat slicks their skin. It does not matter. Johanna leans forward to brush Fallon's damp fringe from his eyes and it is a gesture that is so unlike her. Their lips clash as he pushes himself up to kiss her and wraps his arms tightly around her. For a moment, she finds it hard to breathe. Fallon rests his forehead against her shoulder and he presses his lips to her skin. Johanna is quicker now, but she wants to rest her cheek against his hair and stay close. Then, it is over.

The weather breaks very soon after. Without warning, the storm is all around them and they are in it. In a heartbeat, the temperature drops fifteen degrees and the rain comes. It is cool and healing, wild and fierce. Lightning forks. The thunder is magnificent as it sounds in rolls and waves, so close behind the lightning that they are very nearly one – the storm is all light and sound and power. Ringing its bells, another number 8 clatters by, but it is lost in the beautiful cacophony. Down at O'Connell's, the revellers add their cheers to the roll of thunder and it's deafening applause for a Greek boy at an Irish pub. A piece of the night takes form and Dirk-the-Cat leaps agilely onto the sill, shaking water from his whiskers. He sits there with a disapproving tilt to his head before he lands lightly on the boards. Johanna starts to laugh, then. After a surprised pause, Fallon joins her, and though they cannot hear each other, they can feel and they draw close together. When the rain starts to splatter the sill, Fallon moves to close the window. Johanna stops him, and this time, her lips are soft.

_Leave it, Fallon. Let's feel it. _


End file.
